


Welcome to the New Age

by dizzy



Category: Glee
Genre: Gen, pre-klaine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-20
Updated: 2013-12-20
Packaged: 2018-01-05 07:17:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1091118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dizzy/pseuds/dizzy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kurt Hummel lives underground.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Welcome to the New Age

> _I'm waking up to ash and dust_  
>  _I wipe my brow and I sweat my rust  
> _ _I'm breathing in the chemicals  
> _ _\- Radioactive, Imagine Dragons_

Kurt is born to a family of underground workers. He lives the first five years of his life in the family barracks. His mother is beautiful, with big blue eyes just like his, and she's one of the smartest people in their sector. She works on the computer systems and she sings and mends and cooks, as well, and Kurt doesn't think there's anything she can't do. His father isn't bad, either; he isn't as pretty and he can't really sing but Kurt knows that the repair work his dad does on the air and water filtering systems keep them alive. It's as prestigious a job you can get, resigned to the underground where even relative success isn't actually all that successful.

But Kurt doesn't know that, not at that age. He just knows that his parents are his heroes and that this is his life. 

Breeding cycles for chosen pairs are only allowed once every five years. There are limited resources down below, and those on the surface aren't keen on sharing their bounty any more than they have to.

Those first years he's told over and over that when he's five he gets a sibling. It's the highlight of his young life. Waiting, imagining what it will be like to have someone to play with, because the other underground kids don't really like him very much. Or maybe he doesn't like them. He likes listening to his mother sing more than playing blaster guns, he prefers to help the ladies in the kitchen with meal time when they let him. They usually let him, because he's not rowdy at all. 

His mother's belly starts to grow and Kurt and his father both devote every moment of time that they can to caring for her and talking about the baby. Kurt loves to curl up beside her and listen to the sounds in her belly. She pets his hair and sings to them both,beautiful songs that Kurt knows every word to. 

Then the baby comes and Kurt doesn't know what's happening, only that everyone is frowning and worried. He's led away but he can hear his mother's cries and he doesn't sleep that night, just curls up on a bunk that isn't his and cries with her. 

In the morning his father comes back, eyes red and face bleak. He holds Kurt tightly to him and Kurt knows that everything is going to change now. 

* 

He doesn't see his father as much after that. 

Family barracks are only for breeding pairs, and now it's just Kurt and his father. 

His father is moved to the worker barracks, and Kurt is deposited with the other straggler children. The 'accidents' and those who have lost a parent to sickness or accidents or people who have relocated from the surface down below because they couldn't afford the lifestyle up there. 

In his eighth year he makes friends with a boy that lived on the surface. Kurt is caught in rapture by his descriptions of what it's like up there. All bright colors and sunshine and gleaming jewels and rich, fancy clothing. 

The only sunlight Kurt has seen is what filters down from the windows of their dome, rays so weak there's no warmth and barely any light to them by the time they hit the underground. 

He and his father don't share a home anymore, but his father comes to see him during every meal time that he can and on his off day he always spends time with Kurt. 

With no mother to watch after him and morning lessons taking up some of his time, Kurt doesn't get to hang around the kitchens or the sewing factory anymore. He mends his own clothes from the memory of her hands guiding his and hums under his breath while he does it. 

He has no desire to grow up and fix things, not like the other boys in his lessons do, but he still lives for the days when he gets to follow his father around the repair sector and trail him through the huge open rooms of whirring machinery, the stuff that keeps them alive. 

He's lucky, he tells himself, that he at least has a father. 

He doesn't really feel all that lucky, though.

* 

Into his teenage years, Kurt begins to dream. 

It's not limited to day or not. It's an all encompassing want. 

He wants freedom. He wants to be above the ground. 

There are ways. Some of the kids that live down below are smart enough to earn their way to the surface. Some are talented enough at one thing or another that word trickles up. Some are adopted by families above the surface, charity cases taken in. It's the trendy thing, he's heard, adopting an underground child. 

Most of the other kids underground don't like him very much. At least the ones in his sector, and that's all that really matters, because it's not like anyone has much reason to travel from one sector to the next unless there's a job opening that needs to be filled. Sometimes he likes to pretend that in other sectors there are boys just like him, that like the same things he likes share his distaste for certain behaviors that other kids his age are beginning to lean toward.

But his sector has a couple dozen kids in varying ages and Kurt doesn't have anything in common with really any of them. The few around his age only seem to want to sneak off together, and do things that Kurt really just has no interest in putting thought or imagination toward. 

He makes friends with a girl whose sister lives above ground. They spend hours pouring over data files on a battered touch-book the girl owns. She says above ground they use these things to communicate with each other, but underground there's no way for those kinds of signals to carry. They only work when they're plugged in to communication units, and only workers with special permissions get to use those. 

She's nice to him. He likes having a friend, but it only lasts a short while. The girls sister invites her to come live above again, and who would say no to that? 

She gives Kurt the touch-book as a going away present and kisses him on the mouth. He's shocked by that, by the blush on her cheeks and the way she bites her lip a little when she says, "You can use it to write letters to me if you make it to the surface. I put my sister's information in it. You will, won't you? Because I hope I get to see you again." 

He's unmoved by the kiss or the declaration but he's grateful for the gift. 

* 

He's sixteen when he takes his skill tests. 

He's not really expecting to excel in anything. He's clever but he's not as smart as his mother was and his hands down work over the machinery with the finesse of his father.

He's moderately good at maths and he can read better than most but the things he considers his true skills are not going to be found on a testing screen. He wants to make beautiful things in a world where beautiful things are simply not a priority. 

He taps out his answers one by one and then tries to forget about how he'll do in the interim. 

He has lunch with his dad. His dad looks older now, lines around his eyes and mouth. Kurt worries for him, and he wishes there was something he could do. 

He knows his dad thinks the same about Kurt. He knows because over an off-day dinner his father hands him a touch-book, one of the cheap flimsy ones that are meant to be used and passed along. The display screen is barely bigger than a half-sheet of paper and the backing is not much thicker. 

"I want you to fill that out, son," Burt says. "I got a buddy who does repair work up above. He's gonna drop it off for me." 

Kurt looks at the information on the mainscreen page. 

 _Dalton Academy._  

His heart races. 

* 

Kurt reads every word of the information section on the touch-book. 

Dalton Academy. 

It sounds like a magical place. The subjects he'd learn, the things he'd be able to  _do_. 

They have entire classes just for singing. 

They have classes for cooking, and for sewing. 

Other things, too, things he's never even heard of - 

And they accept a dozen students from underground each year on scholarship. 

For a week Kurt's every breath is drawn hovered over the touch-book, meticulously crafting his application and his essay. 

He can't sleep for another week after that, because he's turned it in and it's out of his hands. 

*

Kurt is accepted into Dalton Academy. 

He doesn't cry as he packs his meager belongings, but he does cry when he hugs his father goodbye. They've walked the five miles to the nearest surface transport station and Kurt aches to think of his father making the walk back alone. 

He can always visit. He can come back. There's no rule saying people above ground can't come under. They just  _don't_. 

Kurt will. He swears it, to himself and to his dad and to the memory of his mother. 

He cries harder when his father presses a box into his hand. Inside is a shirt his mother made, and a painted green cup her remembers her drinking her morning coffee out of. 

He buries himself in his father's arms and for just a moment he doesn't want to go at all. 

But his father pushes him away, kisses him on the head, and says, "She'd be proud of you, Kurt. I know I am. You were always too special to be down here. We both knew it." 

Kurt takes those words and tucks them deep in his heart as he walks away. 

* 

The surface is bright. It's  _blinding_ , and too-warm in a way that isn't entirely comfortable. He's by himself at the surface platform, confused and overwhelmed. 

Cars whiz above the ground, making him jump every time it feels like they're too close. Underground transportation is nothing like this; the motorized cart technology is so far behind this and Kurt knows, he's read and heard, but he hadn't really been able to  _imagine_. Everywhere around are sighs lit light neon and his head throbs, his eyes burn with overstimulation. 

It's noisy, too. Noisy in a different way than underground. Less machines and more beep-buzz-frenetic voices and energy. 

Everything looks clean up here. He has the urge to scrub at his own face, though he knows from his last visit to the little bathroom on the surface transport that he's as fine as he can look in what he has to wear. 

He looks down at his touch-book again. There's supposed to be someone waiting for him, to travel with him to Dalton. He doesn't know who he's supposed to be looking for, but whoever is looking for him must know him because there's a tap on his shoulder. 

His breath catches at the sight of the most beautiful boy he's ever seen, all healthy glowing skin and warm eyes like he's really, actually happy to see Kurt. "Hi," he says, sticking his hand out. "I'm Blaine. I think you're the one I'm supposed to meet?" 

Kurt just nods, his voice lost to the shock of a warm hand gripping his. His heart pounds in his chest. What  _is_ this thing he's feeling? Then he shakes the words loose and laughs breathlessly. "I'm Kurt, and I'm... I'm new here." 

"Well, Kurt." Blaine lets go of his hand, finally, but his eyes are still on Kurt and now the warmth seems to be coming from inside of Kurt instead of the too-close sun. "Dalton Academy awaits - and I know a shortcut."


End file.
